


memento mori

by hiza-chan (callunavulgari)



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Ghosts, M/M, Next Life fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-14
Updated: 2012-06-14
Packaged: 2017-11-07 18:07:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/433900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/hiza-chan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I didn't think that second life you promised would turn out like this," he whispers, pressing a kiss to the palm of Roxas's hand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	memento mori

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Lisa over at my Kingdom Hearts writing meme.

Sometimes Sora can still see them. The moonlight drifts in past his old moth-eaten curtains—the ones made to look like the night sky, bright white stars a shining counterpoint to the rough navy. Sometimes Roxas is sitting in the window, light playing with golden curls, the fabric of the curtains brushing against bruised cheekbones—the dim of the night making him seem more specter than ghost. Sora watches Roxas watch him, his blankets pulled up to his chin, the smell of metal and dust caught in his nostrils. On those nights, when he dreams, it's all ash and fire, blue eyes and green, bloodbloodblood—  
  
When he wakes up the next morning, sun shines through that same window, gulls cawing outside, no sign of Roxas at all.  
  
He works as a janitor at a nearby theme park—the one they'd erected years _after_ over on the main island. The one that had his mother turning to him as they watched the bone-like beginnings go up and say, "Your brother would have loved that."  
  
He spends his nights sweeping up the remnants of the day—stale popcorn and peanuts on the ground, candy floss tucked up against the roots of a tree, caught there when it had blown out of some kids hands. He mops up ice cream spills and cleans the coasters of sun-baked vomit that leaves a rancid vinegar aftertaste clinging to the backs of his nostrils, in the hollow of his throat. He'll see them there too, Axel and Roxas hand-in-hand on the Ferris Wheel. Sometimes they're talking with each other, laughing like there isn't a red gaping wound in the center of Axel's forehead or dozens of bruises on Roxas' body, making him more black and blue than the color of pale honey he was in life.  
  
Other times they watch him, following him slowly across the park, sticking to the shadows. They rarely speak to him on nights like these, and for that, he is almost grateful. It's hard enough having them creep along behind him, wondering if the day will come where they snap and dash his skull open on a confectionery stand.  
  
Roxas smiles sometimes, and Sora almost wishes he wouldn't—the red smile splitting him from ear to ear is eerie and still haunts his nightmares.  
  
When they do speak to him, it's nothing substantial. He knows by know that they don't blame him for what happened. According to Roxas, it's hardly his fault that he'd survived and they hadn't—that he'd slipped away after they made him and Axel watch as they beat Roxas to death. There's a darkness in Roxas' eyes when he says this though, and he knows that his brother does blame him a little bit for it. Not because he'd survived, but because he hadn't gotten Axel out of there as well—tear-stained, screaming Axel who'd needed three people to hold him back from Roxas' corpse when they finally let it slump to the ground, broken as a rag doll and still dripping sluggishly red. They'd laughed when Sora squirmed free, a voice telling the others to let him go, because he wasn't worth it. Axel was still screaming for Roxas when Sora heard the gunshot.  
  
The screaming stopped.  
  
On nights like tonight, when the moon is full, its heavy belly hanging low in the sky, they're chatty. Axel talks him into turning a coaster on for them, and though he could lose his job, he does—the cheerful yellow fairy lights casting a dim glow over them that almost makes him forget that they're not _really_ with him anymore. He watches them ride the rides, meticulously shutting them down when they're done before on to the next one. Roxas grins at him, smile stretching obscenely and wraps a cold arm around him. His brother presses a kiss to his cheek and whispers to him in twin-speak, the language they'd sewn together when they were little. It makes Sora's heart ache, stomach acid churning with nostalgia, bile on his tongue. He smiles back and talks to Roxas, whispering his secrets into his dead brother's ear as they watch Axel climb one of the low hanging trees surrounded by a sea of concrete.  
  
"I miss you, y'know," Roxas tells him as Axel tumbles out of the tree, hair flung every which way and laughing hysterically.  
  
"I know you do," Sora breathes, his hand clenching tight to Roxas's.  
  
Done for the night, Sora goes home.  
  
When he's half asleep that night, he sees them out of the corner of his eye—Roxas perched on his windowsill and Axel next to him, green eyes glinting eerily in the moonlight, acid-bright.  
  
"I didn't think that second life you promised would turn out like this," he whispers, pressing a kiss to the palm of Roxas's hand. Roxas looks at him, sad, but fond. "Neither did I."  
  
They guard his sleep that night, and just as Sora's drifting off, Roxas turns to Axel and says, "Next life, then?"  
  
Axel grins. "It's a promise."  
  
When Sora wakes up the next morning, they're gone. It's normal with them, but this time, there's a finality to it. Something different to the sea-salt breeze in the air, time moving faster now that the dead are no longer there to get caught in its gears.  
  
Sora wakes up, and somewhere in another life, two children squall their way into life, ready to start anew.  
  
Third time's the charm, right?


End file.
